Communication, Knowledge, and Memory in Early Modern Spain (Material Texts) by Fernando Bouza

by Fernando Bouza Álvarez

In a provocative attempt to outline a history of communication during the Spanish Golden Age, Communication, Knowledge, and Memory in Early Modern Spain examines how speech, visual images, and written texts all interact as manifestations of the human desire to know and remember. Seeking to address the reductive opposition both between written and oral texts and between script and print in the Early Modern period, Fernando Bouza, one of Spain's most influential cultural historians, makes an elegant case for the equality and complementary natures of the various modes of communication. While the advent of printing is commonly thought to have resulted in the demise of the manuscript, Bouza upholds that the progress of textual culture in all its forms did not undermine the importance of other mediums of knowledge.The history of the book and of reading is often considered separately from the history of the uses of writing and speech, but according to Bouza, the boundaries between the spheres are artificial constructions that fail to honor the realities of the transfer of knowledge and information. While recognizing that reading and writing belong to two distinct models of acculturation, Bouza refuses to accept the myth that has identified rationality and modernity with written culture only, while the languages of images and the practices of orality are relegated to the past. Considering the uses of text, image, and speech in social settings ranging from the most humble to the most aristocratic, he argues that orality is as strongly present in the world of the court as in popular milieux, that the image was put to uses both naive and learned, and that writing--far from a privilege of the powerful--touched the lives of even the illiterate.This original and brilliant book is bound to transform current understandings of the intellectual practices of the Golden Age.

Genres: History

Hardcover

First published May 17, 2004

About the author

FERNANDO BOUZA ÁLVAREZ nació en Madrid, en 1960. Es Profesor Catedrático de Historia Moderna en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, universidad por la que se doctoró con una tesis sobre el Portugal de Felipe II. Ha sido profesor visitante en EHESS, París (1996); The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (1998); University of California at Berkeley (2007); Collège de France, Paris (2008); y Universidade de São Paulo (2013).
Ha colaborado en actividades de evaluación y seguimiento de programas y convocatorias de I + D en España, Francia y Portugal.
Entre sus líneas de investigación se encuentran la historia cultural ibérica del Siglo de Oro y la historia de la comunicación política en la alta Edad Moderna europea.
Entre sus libros se encuentran Imagen y propaganda. Capítulos de historia cultural del reinado de Felipe II. Madrid, 1998; Cartas para duas infantas meninas. Portugal na correspondência de D. Filipe I para as suas filhas (1581-1583). Lisboa, 1999 ; Portugal no tempo dos Filipes. Política, cultura, representações (1580-1668), Lisboa, 2000; Corre manuscrito. Una historia cultural del Siglo de Oro. Madrid, 2001; Palabra e imagen en la corte. Cultura oral y visual de la nobleza en el Siglo de Oro. Madrid, 2003; Communication, knowledge, and memory in early modern Spain. Philadelphia, 2004; D. Filipe I, Lisboa, 2008; Papeles y opinión. Políticas de publicación en el Siglo de Oro. Madrid, 2008; Hétérographies. Formes de l´écrit au Siècle d´Or espagnol. Madrid, 2010; Dásele licencia y privilegio. Don Quijote y la aprobación de libros en el Siglo de Oro. Madrid, 2012.